Tech entrepreneur. Founder @electricsql. Founder @gatsbyjs (acquired by Netlify). @kylemathews on Twitter

I feel like I’ve never really grokked static site generators despite chatting a lot with @kam (of Gatsby fame) about them. They now seem like a ecosystem that’s *more* complex than WordPress. But what’s the essence of them, the way “chronological web log + rss” was it for WP &co? https://jamstack.org/generators/

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

I am attracted to them for some projects (non-chronological content garden projects) but the fact that any kind of dynamic/interactive behavior is unreasonably hard makes me wonder what the pain is for.

There’s also an almost-PB&J relationship to notebook apps/tools-for-thought corner, probably due to the graph database shared factor, but it hasn’t really come together somehow.

I feel like there’s something more fundamental behind the programmer affordances of the JAM stack over LAMP and ability solve for specific metrics like speed (which Gatsby solves for). I know what I’m giving up (low/no code dynamic interfaces) but *why,* broadly? Is there a media philosophy I’m missing?

I think classic disruption theory explains it pretty well. Who's under or over-served by WP? Many programmers are over-served as they want a language/ecosystem they're familiar with (Node.js) and just want md vs. a full-blown admin/editing interface.